Beaten and Blown By the Wind

Chapter Fourteen: A Very Unsurprising Surprise

Aboard the Hogwarts Express things were how they have always been since the Hogwarts Express first started running the students to their beloved school. The students visited their friends in other compartments, fought over silly things, shared summer mini-dramas, and engaged in many wizarding games. By looking on the Hogwarts Express one wouldn't know that the most horrible, evil wizard many living had ever known of in their lifetime had put on a display of his complete return only a few months before. Harry wasn't sure if he liked that or not. His party had a late arrival in their newfound friend Luna Lovegood, who had been kicked out of a compartment she had claimed upon arrival by some nasty seventh year Slytherins calling her a freak.

This was the only compartment that held any indication that the coming year may not be the best. The unspoken tension was almost visible as Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and Neville looked at each other in silence, almost willing someone else to say something. Perhaps the most unnerving was Luna who was mostly keeping up the spacey demeanor she was known for, but occasionally ended up looking around at the others just as they were. Contrary to her father's belief, Luna had not come back from the Department of Mysteries unscathed. Being someone who normally kept to herself, however, it was not difficult for her to pretend she was completely unaffected. Rather, Luna had finally gotten the last kick in the butt to join the rest of the world and realized it, well, existed. Finally, when no one could take it anymore, Hermione broke the tension.

"How was your holiday, Luna? We never heard from you."

"I never heard from any of you either," she said, not moving her gaze from the passing landscape outside. "Aside from Neville, that is, Neville wrote."

"Sorry about that, Luna. I've had a bit of adjusting to do this summer," Harry said, a little embarrassed that he never even thought to say hi once. "I kinda forgot about everything, that there even was anything, outside the house."

"Summer does that sometimes," she replied in her detached, spacey tone, this time looking to Harry and focusing on him a moment as if sizing him up. It was a look that betrayed her spaciness as an act, for she joined the real world for a moment. "You must have had an interesting summer, what with meeting your godmother and all. That was awfully nice of her seeing you off like that."

"Yeah. She's pretty friendly, you'd probably like her," Harry smiled at Luna, who almost seemed normal to him for once. "She'd get a kick out of you, she likes meeting different people," he stopped at Hermione's glare. "Sorry, that didn't quite come out as I meant it. Not that you're odd or anything, I just meant..."

"It's alright. I understand, no offence taken," Luna interrupted before Harry dug himself into a deeper hole. "Aislynn McGarret, right?" Harry nodded. "Thought so. Mind you, I'd know from the Daily Prophet, but I've met her before. She was friendly to me, I did like her, but then she wasn't so friendly to my dad when he got home from the office."

"When did she come to visit you?" Harry asked, voicing everyone's confusing.

"Right after Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban. Daddy did a special issue about it, you see, with every kind of speculation of how and why he escaped imaginable. Its sales record was only beat by the issue last spring with your interview, Harry. There are two things that sell, Daddy says: celebrities and criminals. He was dancing when Sirius Black escaped because he was both, or so everyone thought, that is."

"So Lynn came to give her opinion on it?" Ron asked, confused as to where the story was going.

"No, hardly. It was before school started, so I was home making dinner for my dad and me. He was due home from the office about fifteen minutes after she knocked on the door. I opened the door and didn't know her, but she seemed really nice and promised that she wasn't working for Fudge and wasn't an angry journalist, so I let her in and started making extra dinner. She asked me normal questions about school and stuff, you know, what year I was in, what house, stuff like that. Then Daddy came home, walked in the kitchen, and just stopped in the doorway looking at her. His mouth dropped right open and he asked if she was a ghost. She laughed and said no, so then he stopped and warned her that if she was here to hurt us, he'd contact the ministry immediately and she laughed again and said that if she wanted to hurt us, she'd have already done it."

"That sounds like Lynn, alright," Ron said, looking less confused.

"What did she want from your dad?"

"I don't know. He asked if dinner could wait and they went into his office. I figured it wasn't my business, so I didn't try to listen in. When they came out, they shook hands and she left. Daddy came to the dinner table looking like he won the lottery. 'Do you know who that was?' he asked. 'Nope,' I told him. 'That was Aislynn McGarret. Sirius Black's fiancée before he was taken to Azkaban,' he told me and I said she seemed nice and asked what she wanted. 'She wanted an advance issue of my special edition. Apparently the Ministry has her out looking for him,' he said. I told him it made sense. 'She wanted every possibility so she could find him,' I reasoned, but my Daddy shook his head and said, 'Fudge is a damn fool if he thinks she's going to turn Black over to the dementors. She talks the part and looks like she walks it as well, but you don't take back twelve years of swearing on your life that a man's innocent to turn him over to dementors once he escapes them. She's either getting something from the Ministry for this or is planning to screw them over. I'd stop the presses to put in a new editorial right now about this if she didn't forbid me to say anything about it.' 'Someone telling you not to write something never stopped you before,' I told him. 'She said she'd know about it, obviously, and she'd make sure I'd never print another issue of the Quibbler again if I did. And I don't think she'd worry about the legal way to stop me,' he told me, and I shrugged. He gets threats a lot. That's when he shook his head and told me to keep it quiet and take her threat seriously because he didn't doubt she'd live up to her word."

"That's not so Aislynn," Ron said, looking a little upset.

"Sure it is," Ginny argued. "Remember the guys on the bus? She had no problems starting fights with them and we all know how much she likes Fudge."

"You didn't even tell Dumbledore about what your dad said?" Harry asked, ignoring Ron and Ginny.

"Why? Dumbledore knows everything that happens everywhere one way or another anyway. Besides, I know everyone takes my father as a joke. Yes, Dumbledore listens, but he's amused, not worried, with everything Daddy says. Plus she had mentioned to me that she had been a Gryffindor prefect, so I just figured that Dumbledore knew her well enough to suspect anything Daddy did. He tends to know everything everyone else does before they mention it," Luna shrugged. "It's a good thing I didn't tell him, I'd think. If it got around that she was acting suspiciously, rumors would have started and Fudge hates rumors."

"I wouldn't mind being taken off an assignment like that very much at all," Ginny said. "You hear the way she talks about Sirius. Imagine feeling that strongly for someone and then being told you have to hunt him down to have big creepy things suck his soul away. It's just awful! I can't believe she even agreed to something like that!"

"I wonder how long Sirius would have avoided those 'big creepy things' without her," Luna said, surprising everyone with normal input to their conversation. "If you don't mind me saying, Harry."

"No, you have a point. Aside from you, Luna, and you, Neville, the rest of us have gotten to know Lynn pretty well this summer. I think I speak for us all when I say it's highly unlikely Sirius would have been out and about free for more than a month if she had really tried to catch him - she knew him too well. And don't you find it strange that he got into Hogwarts multiple times and still no one caught him? You'd think just by chance he'd get caught somewhere or another."

"Are you saying she was hiding him?" Neville asked, interested. He had been filled in since the previous spring on Sirius' innocence by Ginny and Hermione when he asked why Harry was so concerned over his death and why Sirius was fighting the death eaters in the first place, but didn't know much more than the fact that Sirius was innocent.

"She couldn't have been. You saw the state he was in when he dragged me to the Shrieking Shack," Ron argued.

"He dragged you to the Shrieking Shack? Is that what how you got out there? How did Snape get involved? He was sticking his nose where it didn't belong, wasn't he?" Neville asked, tired of being in the dark and feeling worthy of an explanation.

"Yes, that's where we found out he was innocent, but it's a long story that we'll tell you later," Harry answered when everyone looked at him. "You too, Ginny and Luna. We'll fill you in on all the craziness later. If you're going to be part of this, you're going to have to know what's already happened. But back to Sirius' escape, Lynn wasn't hiding him. She told me as much. She met up with him every once and again, but always sent him the opposite way she went to look for him. Thought it was too risky to hide him, she was afraid someone would eventually try truth serum on her after a long while of his barely escaping her capture and decided she'd get in trouble for hindering the search, but wouldn't be able to give him up."

"I guess that makes sense then. I still couldn't imagine being forced to search him out, but I suppose it was better than letting the Ministry really search for him. If she was in charge, she could tell people to search where she knew he wasn't," Ginny thought aloud.

"And that's just what she did. Remus said she even showed up at Hogwarts when he appeared the first two times. You know when he shredded the portrait and then when Ron saw him. Remus said she was acting like she was trying to chase leads, but Dumbledore kept kicking her out of the castle after a while because she was wasting everyone's time and making them go in circles. If I had known the truth, I would have helped him all I could and misdirected everyone best I could too," Harry told them, looking a little solemn.

"He meant a lot to you, didn't he?" Neville asked quietly and continued without waiting for Harry's obvious answer. "I don't know whether to feel bad for you or be happy things ended like they did. Yes, he's gone, but you'll always remember him as Sirius, the way he always was, and you obviously liked him enough as himself. My parents, see, they...I don't even remember them, you know, how they were before it all. They don't even recognize me when I visit. Sometimes I think that's worse, but they're still here, I still have them."

"Thank you," was all Harry said, leaving Neville thinking he had said too much or too little or that perhaps it hadn't come out the way he intended. Had Neville known he was only the second person yet that Harry didn't get angry with for trying to empathize with him over Sirius' death, he would have understood Harry's immediate urge to let Neville into his tight group of friends without question. As it was, like Luna and Ginny, Neville was only happy to be joining the famous trio, having been friends with the three for years without knowing what they were up to.

After that, the tension in the back compartment lessened and the train ride to Hogwarts was what it normally was for the six students traveling there. Right after the witch with the food cart came by, none other than the infamous Draco Malfoy came to the back compartment to tell Ron and Hermione there would be a prefects meeting up in the front compartment within the next five minutes. The couple left, Ron grumbling the whole way about Malfoy, and returned about twenty minutes later, seeming in good spirits. The journey ended in Hogsmeade as usual and the six sat together at the Gryffindor table once arriving in the Great Hall. As the students filed in, they seemed to notice something odd at the faculty table.

"Where's Snape?" Ron asked, looking at the other five, who were wondering much the same thing.

"Maybe he got a call from, well, you know," Ginny suggested.

"I doubt it," Hermione said while she seemed to be counting professors. "For one, Voldemort wouldn't be dumb enough to call on Snape during the feast. It'd be too suspicious and he's smarter than all that."

"How do you figure he's smarter than all that?" Ron countered.

"Well, if he was dumb enough to make his followers that obvious or suspicious, he wouldn't have any outside of Azkaban now, would he? Besides, there's no new teacher up there. Snape's probably with the new DADA professor."

"I forgot we were getting another new professor," Harry mused, not really caring if Snape ever showed up despite his temporary truce with the man over the summer.

"Do you think they'll be nice? Nice and a good teacher?" Neville asked hopefully. "I mean, look at Lockhart. He was nice, but I don't remember learning all that much."

"I'm sure Dumbledore's found someone perfect for the job," Hermione tried to encourage him.

Just then the doors opened and McGonagall led in the first years. Dumbledore made a short speech, listed the Forbidden Forest as forbidden, and then stressed that any students out of their common rooms or dormitories after hours without specific permission from a professor would be severely punished for safety reasons. McGonagall then explained the sorting and introduced everyone's favorite Sorting Hat, which sang a new song that was a mix of the one Harry had heard his first year and the one it sang the previous year telling them all to stick together. Everyone applauded and the sorting began. After the last person was sorted, the students turned to their plates expectantly, only to be interrupted by McGonagall tapping her goblet with her spoon, looking quite pleased as Dumbledore stood to address the students once more.

"It occurs to me that many things are going to be different this year, but that I will be unable to tell you about them all in advance. I will do my best to keep all students aware of all outside happenings, but the changes that immediately concern us all are in this very school. As all of our returning students are aware, there were several educational decrees put into effect last year. I am happy to inform you that every one of them has been lifted. Things will return to the way they were, I assure you, but the transition will need the help of every person in this school," Dumbledore said in a serious tone before brightening. "As returning students are also aware, there will be a new DADA professor this year, one that I have tried to bring to you for many years. It is our own good fortune that she has agreed to come back to Hogwarts and teach you all as much as she can for as long as she can manage to stay with us at the school," Dumbledore paused as Snape and the new professor, who had obviously been arguing about something rather unnoticeably off to the side of the head table, halted their argument to join the rest of the staff at the head table as Dumbledore spoke. Harry blinked a few times in amazement. "Aislynn McGarret was one of Hogwarts brightest when she was a student and has a very strong background in DADA, including auror training. Professor McGarret, would you like to say a few words?"

"I could hardly keep everyone from the feast any longer, sir. Anything I could say to the students can very easily wait until class," Lynn answered quietly, but clearly enough to be heard by everyone as she smiled a little at the students who were looking at her apprehensively. She took a nod from Dumbledore as leave to find her seat further along the table next to Snape and went to sit down as he continued.

"Never was a truer word spoken. I hope you will all show your new professor the same respect you show all your professors. Now, without further adieu, let's eat!" Dumbledore clapped his hands and the mountains of food that always awaited the students in a feast appeared before them and everyone dug in except for Harry and Hermione.

"Don't you think Lynn would've mentioned this to us earlier?" Harry asked.

"Maybe she didn't know earlier. Maybe said no before and that's what Snape was doing on the platform, trying to talk her into it for Dumbledore. You know they're buddies," Ron suggested through a mouthful of potato.

"I think she's up to something," Hermione said, looking up at her with the same critical look Harry was.

"Oh come on, not that again!' Ron exclaimed, dropping his utensils in his frustration as he looked from Harry to Hermione. "Come on you two, she saved us from suspension and being expelled, she put up with us all summer, and she gave us loads of spending money during a trip she financed to Diagon Alley! Will you get it out of your head that she's suddenly some evil weirdo up to no good? Come on, the food's great. Everyone's going to start talking if they notice the two of you not eating. Besides, Harry, think of what my mum would say if she saw you sitting in front of good food without taking a bite of any of it!" Ginny laughed a little at that, almost hearing her mother fuss over Harry like he was on the brink of fatal starvation or something. "Think of what Lynn would say! She'd never stop teasing you! She'd tell you to get over it and move on, that life's just one big surprise anyway or maybe that you should have seen this coming. Any way you slice it, the both of them would be working in their own ways to get you to eat."

"But she's not. She's up there playing professor," Harry muttered a little angrily, feeling betrayed that she had lied to him, telling him only last night that she didn't want the cursed job of Hogwarts' new DADA professor. She caught his eye just then and winked, but Harry just looked away and turned to the food. He was too angry to be pleased she was going to be right there at Hogwarts all year.

Harry's anger had given way to curiosity enough for him to ask Ron for the common room password and then hang behind everyone as they left the Great Hall in hopes of catching a word with his godmother. Ginny had wanted to stay with him, but he asked if she minded that he preferred to talk to her alone right then and Ginny had smiled and told him to fill them all in when he got to the common room. Harry was grateful for her immediate understanding, but too upset at the moment to mention it to her. Lynn had several of the professors crowd her after the feast to say hello and welcome her to the school, but they had thinned out as the students had and now only Snape was there speaking with her in hushed tones that indicated an argument. Harry approached cautiously.

"What do you want, Potter? You're supposed to be headed to your common room. Did you not listen to the headmaster? It'd be quite the pity if you were the student to be made example as to what happens when students are out at night without permission on the first night here, even," Snape hissed at him caustically.

"Honestly, Severus, no wonder the two of you don't get along! Do you always attack him like that when he walks up to you?" Lynn chided him, looking a little angry and confused at Snape's behavior.

"I'm here to speak with Lynn, Professor. Or is it Professor McGarret now?" Harry asked with a bit of the caustic tone and sneer Snape had just used on him when turning to his godmother. Lynn looked a bit taken aback.

"Of course. Severus, if you wouldn't mind...?"

"Pity, this may have been interesting. ...No, don't start, I wasn't serious. You couldn't keep me here if you wanted," the man sneered as he turned and left the room in the direction of the dungeons. Lynn shook her head at him and indicated the closest house table. Harry sat down on one side and her on the other, facing him.

"What's bothering you?"

"That's a way to put it. You lied to me," Harry accused.

"I never lied!"

"You said you didn't want the DADA job!"

"I said I'd rather not have it, but seeing as it was the only way to make sure you were well and ready for Voldemort, I decided I'd deal with it!"

"What do you mean the only way to make sure I was ready for Voldemort?"

"Remember when you asked about it last night and I told you I had my ways? Well, quite honestly, those ways didn't work out. Dumbledore thinks your leaving the castle or my coming to the castle on a regular basis is a bad idea and that signing me on as a professor was just as obvious, but safer for both of us. He refused to let me teach you any other way."

"When did you find this out?"

"Right before I came to say goodbye today. That's what I was talking to Severus about. It was Dumbledore's final offer. I figured telling you right then wasn't the best time and at the feast with everyone else was as good as any time available, especially since I agreed to it after the train left."

"Oh," Harry said and shrunk back a bit, a little embarrassed that he had just started yelling without asking for her side of the story. "Sorry about the yelling thing."

"Don't worry about it; I probably would have killed me if I were you. And I hate to cut you short, but I have last minute teacher stuff to do. I didn't know I was going to have classes tomorrow until earlier today and I have never been a teacher before. I'm not sure how this first week or two's going to go. I may just use this week for introductions. You know, let people ask me questions and stuff, plan from what they expect as much as what they need to know," she said, obviously a bit uneasy with the idea of having to be a professor, as they stood and started heading off in the direction of the Gryffindor common room.

"That should work fine. You'll probably end up being our best DADA professor since Remus," Harry assured her.

"I guess," she responded mechanically, unconvinced. But then she brightened. "That's the best part, and I forgot to tell you!"

"What? That you guess you'll be as good as Remus?"

"No, that when I'm forced to leave Hogwarts, Remus will come and take up my position," she told him and Harry brightened with her for a moment before his face fell.

"When you say forced to leave Hogwarts, you mean..."

"It's probably best if we don't focus on that," Lynn told him, stopping him before he could try to finish his sentence. "We have a while before that's the case. But, even better than assuring Remus a good job he loves and you all a great teacher who isn't keen on leaving at the end of the year, you'll have Remus here as close as Ron, Hermione, and Ginny when I leave. Things should be easier for you that way."

"So did you secure him the job for me or him?"

"A little bit of both. I know he's not my responsibility like you are, but I feel he is sometimes. You know I'll give him whatever help I can offer and when there's a benefit for you possible, you know it becomes my ulterior motive. Remus will need you as much as you'll need him, Harry. But unlike you, he doesn't have people like Ron, Hermione, and Ginny to fall back on. I'm the last one of those people, sadly enough."

"Are you saying he has no family or anything left?"

"He has you, and he has the Weasleys, but he's too humble to ask any of you for help and I doubt he'd try to talk about it with the Weasleys. He'd talk to you if you came to him first, Harry, and that's one of the reasons I want you to know he's there. The two of you have lost many of the same people. You could understand each other better than any of us could if you tried. He does have a little bit of family left, but it's up to him overcoming his own fears of the past and his whole no confidence in himself thing to gain their presence. I'm trying to talk him into it, but he's not having it."

"He doesn't want to be in touch with his family?"

"It's more that he doesn't want to disturb them. There was a period when you were a first year student before we realized Voldemort was an imminent threat to you in which Dumbledore told me I could contact you if I wanted, you know. I only had about three months and in that time I had been told how you were happy for the first time in your life and that things were working out for you. Who was I to come and change that? I figured I'd have plenty of time later, but then my opportunity had slipped by. Please understand that I didn't shy away from contacting you in one way or another because I didn't want to. I just didn't want to disturb what happiness you had found until you got to enjoy it for a while. How was I to know if you would be happy to know me or not? Especially since the whole world, even Dumbledore, still thought Sirius had betrayed your parents and I had been severely disturbed by the whole situation and was halfway to full blown insanity. Sometimes people don't contact family out of love, Harry. Sometimes they're afraid to cause more problems," she explained as they stopped in front of the portrait of the fat lady, who was not presently in her frame.

"And Remus already feels guilty for living," Harry continued, half to himself as Lynn nodded, looking saddened by the unfortunate and unnecessary guilt their friend carried on his shoulders. "He even felt guilty disturbing you when you had no one and were all alone and he had no place to go. That's what you were arguing about when he first came this summer, wasn't it?"

"Yes. That's why he always looks like he hasn't slept nor had a decent meal for days every time he pops up from nowhere. A lot of times it's not far from the truth. He'd be a lot better off if he'd just take his money. Do you know it's still in a vault in Gringotts with my sister's name on it? She died fifteen years ago and he still hasn't touched it."

"Would you have?"

"If it meant staying off the streets and not having to force myself to ask for help I didn't want to have to receive?"

"You've got a point," Harry said, considering. "Why does he do that to himself?"

"Getting kicked out of homes and jobs isn't something he does to himself, but if you mean not taking the money, I'm not sure. Never asked, actually," Lynn stopped to mill over a thought before continuing slowly as if she were still thinking it through. "I suppose that vault's one of the last things left in the world that she was the last to touch. Maybe he feels that he loses the last bit of her still here by disturbing it," she smiled sadly. "But I've come to terms with such things a while ago and have realized that the longer things stay unchanged, the longer you mourn the past and your pain, the worse it gets. The saying that time heals all wounds isn't exactly a lie, but it isn't truth either. Some wounds don't go away. Nothing will change that. Your parents, both of us are marked by the loss of them. You having to have grown up like you did, me losing two very close friends and a fiancée. He marked us too, there's no doubt about it, everyone who means something special to you leaves a mark when they go, whether it be a day or forever," she told him, not being able to look him in the eyes.

"You know, I hardly thought about Sirius all summer. I was thinking about him on the train this morning and I couldn't help but feel guilty. It was like seeing him going through that veil again, realizing that I let myself forget about him," Harry looked at her with an urgent look in his eyes. "Does that make me...I don't know...a different person?"

"Does that make you a bad person, do you mean? No, Harry, it doesn't. You can't expect to think about him every moment of your life and he wouldn't want you to. People leave us, people are taken from us. It's part of life. It's the bad, horrible part that no one wants to face or talk about, but it's there. You didn't forget him and you won't forget him. You couldn't if you tried. Even if he hadn't meant so much to you, he wasn't the kind of guy you just forget, was he?"

"No, I guess not," Harry said, smiling a little. "And that's what's different between you and Remus? You don' feel guilty for moving on?"

"No, I feel guilty every time I catch myself laughing without him. I feel guilty every time I have a serious talk with you that really should be up to parents to discuss with their kids. I feel guilty every time I find Remus at my doorstep looking half dead from a week with no home knowing that he should be safe and happy with my sister. The difference is not guilt, Harry. Everyone has guilt. The difference is being able to convince yourself that they wouldn't want you stuck on them forever. Then you feel guilty for your guilt, so it's really an unending cycle, so maybe it doesn't matter if your guilt's from being stuck on them or causing you to stick to them."

"So feeling guilty about Sirius having to come out and try to save me is..."

"Pointless. If it makes you feel any better, he was going nuts stuck in that house doing nothing. He was probably having the time of his life fighting the fight that he got taken away from all those years ago. No, if you're going to let yourself feel guilty, feel guilty that you spent so much time thinking it was your fault because even if it was, he probably thought it as much of a blessing as a chore to get out of that house. Was he smiling?"

"Until he got hit by that last curse."

"See? He was having a blast. He always loved dueling. Damn good at it too," Lynn seemed to be trying to wipe her eyes stealthily and Harry felt immediately better knowing that she was trying to convince herself he went out as he would have wanted to with as much trouble as he himself was having. "You should have seen your father duel. He could knock Sirius out in a second. It's the Quidditch thing. Seekers have to have brilliantly fast reflexes. You're more than lucky that you're so good on a broom. It gives you more practice than you'd think."

"Funny how I never bothered to connect dueling death eaters for my life with Quidditch," Harry replied with a laugh. Just then the fat lady returned.

"Finally coming to join us, Mr. Potter? I was just checking the gossip to hear your amazing arrival this year," the fat lady asked, showing more personality than Harry was used to, but he figured it was getting late and as the paintings were starting to fall asleep she probably had no one else to talk to.

"I apologize, the fault's mine. I was chatting up Harry."

"Miss McGarret! I had heard you were returning to us this year and was wondering when I would see you. It's been quite a while; we had all thought you'd return years ago when young Mr. Lupin came to us. Said some appalling things about you after young Mr. Black came and tore up my canvas, he did, you might've thought that he was the other! I never remembered Mr. Lupin having that awful temper Mr. Black did," the lady paused, summing her up. "You didn't let him in here to tear up my canvas, did you? Mr. Lupin was cursing you, said you were making sure he was running free and probably lead him right to Mr. Potter here yourself."

"I'm sure he was just angry, he knew as well as I did that I never would have allowed Sirius to harm Harry nor any innocent canvases had I had a say in things," Lynn said with a smile as the lady chucked and Harry remembered someone telling him once that the paintings gossiped. He could no longer wonder how his secret escapades were known about all over school, what the fat lady must pick up being the entrance to the common room!

"No dear, I doubt you would have. Too bad you weren't here either. You probably could have stopped him. I feel just awful that I can't forgive him for that now that I've heard he was innocent all along. He was right out of Azkaban then too, and I've seen what that place does to people. The fact that he had most of his wits about him is as amazing as his escape! He probably wouldn't have let his temper get the better of him so quickly if he were in his right mind."

"I'm sure he wouldn't have, you were always so kind to him when he was pranking, never directly turning him in," Lynn smiled and looked to Harry. "You do know your password, right?"

"Yes," Harry answered and turned to the fat lady, now looking as she normally did, standing straight and tall waiting for the password. "Alohomora" he said as the painting swung open.

"Imagine that. Clever, it is. Who would think of an unlocking charm as a password?" Lynn chucked as Harry started in. "Night Harry. Oh! And I almost forgot! When it's just the two of us or a couple people, Lynn's just fine. In class and such though, Dumbledore insists that you all refer to me as Professor. Silly, I know, but it's a direct order. If you could pass it on...?"

"I will," Harry said, stepping through the hole and moving to close the portrait behind him. "Goodnight, Professor," he said quickly as the portrait swung shut almost quick enough to block the dirty look he earned from his teasing as Lynn just shook her head with the fat lady a moment before saying farewell and goodnight herself and heading down to her office to make sure she actually had something for classes tomorrow.